Gluten-free bread can be good

VINCE CASSARO, The Patriot-NewsJules E. Dowler Shepard speaks to groups around the country about maintaining a gluten-free diet. "Nobody should be cheating, and nobody should be suffering," she tells fellow celiac patients.

"Good" isn’t a word typically used to describe gluten-free bread, but celiac patient, author and gluten-free baking expert Jules E. Dowler Shepard thinks it should be. And at a gathering of the Gluten Intolerance Group of Harrisburg earlier this year, that was how several people described the bread that she made.

Shepard came to Hershey to share baking tips and inspiration for those who cannot eat gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, barley and sometimes oats. People with celiac disease, like Shepard, must avoid all gluten, which their bodies treat as if it were poison.

But gluten is what gives bread structure and elasticity, so finding or making gluten-free baked goods that taste as good as their wheat counterparts can involve a lot of trial and error.

Soon after my husband, Ted, was diagnosed with celiac disease, we received a bread machine as a gift. I thought it would be easy - and cheaper - to make his bread. I bought some bread mixes, followed the directions and let it bake. But we were always disappointed with the results. They didn't bake evenly, or they came out of the machine nice, but then collapsed. They went stale quickly. Or, they used flours that had an aftertaste.

I soon gave up, and my husband went back to brand surfing in search of his Holy Grail: a gluten-free bread that can be sliced, left on the counter and used to make a sandwich that doesn't require heating to improve the texture.

Several companies make gluten-free breads, and Harrisburg-area grocery stores carry a variety. More products are available all the time, and they are getting better. Yet most just don't stack up. They are often dry and crumbly. The ones that are palatable require toasting to be usable, and they often need to be refrigerated or frozen. At $4.50 to $6 a loaf, they aren't cheap.

Shepard, of Catonsville, Md., understands. "Bread is the one thing we all miss," she told the group gathered in Hershey.

It doesn't have to be that way, she said. Instead, she advocates making your own. Many new breadmakers offer a gluten-free setting, making the process easier. And, she pointed out, it takes less time than regular bread because you don't have to knead gluten-free dough.

Shepard, author of "Nearly Normal Cooking for Gluten-Free Eating," found it frustrating to have to gather five types of flour every time she wanted to make something. She spent more than two years developing an all-purpose gluten-free flour blend that she could use in nearly any recipe and confidently serve to family and friends.

Her method, as she explains in her cookbook, is to cut the "distinctive taste and gritty texture of rice flour by cutting it with other milder starches and flours." She uses a combination of rice, corn, potato and tapioca flours and starches.

After the cookbook became popular, Shepard started selling the mix for people who want the ease of purchasing a premade blend. Jules Gluten Free Flour has a shelf-life of 15 months without refrigeration, and it is made in a certified, allergy-free, gluten-free and kosher facility. It has been tweaked from the recipe in her book and uses high-quality ingredients, such as Expandex Modified Tapioca Starch that extends the shelf life of baked goods.

Shepard cautions people that her flour is designed to work on a 1-to-1 exchange with wheat flour in "normal" recipes and that substituting her blend in recipes calling for other gluten-free flours might not yield good results since many recipes compensate for the bad taste of the gluten-free flour by adding extra sugar and butter.

"I tell people that I use my Betty Crocker cookbook, not my Bette Hagman cookbook," she said. Bette Hagman was a pioneer in gluten-free cooking and baking and authored a popular series of "Gluten-Free Gourmet" cookbooks.

With more gluten-free flour mixes coming onto the market, including some from baking giant King Arthur and a gluten-free version of Bisquick, Shepard's flour stands out because it already includes xanthan gum. "It takes so many steps out of the process that it makes it worth baking again," she said.

With that encouragement, I ordered some of her flour online (It's not available in local stores) and tried to replicate the sandwich bread recipe that we sampled in Hershey.

View full sizeJENNIFER PALIK, The Patriot-NewsUse of a bread thermometer is recommended for gluten-free baking.

My bread often doesn't seem to cook evenly or thoroughly, so I followed Shepard's advice and bought a bread thermometer. "I stick every loaf of bread with it," Shepard said in an interview. "Sometimes it's done, and sometimes it's not, especially in a breadmaker." It's often necessary to add time so that the loaf reads between 205 and 210 degrees F in the middle.

My bread machine is an older model without a gluten-free setting, so I have to manually adapt the settings to exclude the second and third knead and punch-down cycles. On my first attempt, I found out that the bread wasn't cooking long enough to reach the correct internal temperature. With a little extra cooking time, the recipe turned out a delicious-smelling loaf that resembled a multi-grain artisan bread. It was extremely moist -- perhaps overly so -- and lasted for a week in a plastic bag on the counter.

It cost around $6 to make a loaf of the bread, so it's not really saving money over the store-bought versions. But it certainly tasted better and disappeared faster than any store-bought bread we have tried.

Shepard said the recipe can be adapted to make it suit different families' needs. For instance, some families with kids will swap out the flaxseed or buckwheat to make a loaf that is more like white bread. Other families must use nondairy products to account for additional food allergies.

To help families who must deal with multiple food intolerances, Shepard is putting the finishing touches on a new cookbook, "Free for All Cooking," in which she wants to "arm people with an understanding of how to make substitutions" for common food allergens. The cookbook is available on Amazon.com.

View full sizeJENNIFER PALIK, The Patriot-NewsThe recipe calls for ingredients such as yogurt to help keep the bread moist. A thermometer ensures that the bread is reaching the proper temperature when cooked in a bread machine.

BREAD RECIPE

2 T. flaxseed meal

6 T. hot water

2 T. honey or agave nectar

1 tsp. apple cider vinegar

1 1/4 cup vanilla yogurt

1/4 cup canola oil

3 cups Jules Gluten Free All Purpose Flour

1/4 cup buckwheat flour, brown rice flour or flaxseed meal

1/4 cup dry milk powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. gluten-free baking powder

1 tsp. sea salt

1 tsp. granulated cane sugar

1 T. gluten-free rapid-rise or bread machine yeast

1 T. flaxseeds or sesame seeds

1 T. coarse sea salt

preparations

1. In a small bowl, add the hot water and 2 tablespoons of flaxseed meal and stir; let stand for 10 minutes, or until viscous. (Note: You can substitute 2 eggs for the flaxseed gel.)

2. When using a bread machine, add all liquid ingredients to the pan first, followed by the dry ingredients. Sift flours, milk powder, baking soda, baking powder and sea salt together in a bowl first, then pour into the bread machine pan after all the liquids are added. Reserve the yeast for last in bread machines, making a small well in the top of the dry ingredients in the pan, and pouring the sugar and yeast into that well.

3. The dough will be very thick (much more like regular wheat flour bread dough than you might be used to with gluten free); however, if the dough seems too thick, gradually add more yogurt, one tablespoon at a time while the bread machine is mixing, until the dough is still thick, but able to be smoothed with a spatula. Be sure to check the bread with a spatula throughout the mixing process to ensure that the dry ingredients have been incorporated.

4. Smooth the top with a rubber spatula and when done mixing, sprinkle flaxseed and coarse sea salt on top of the loaf, if desired. Select either the gluten-free bread setting on your machine or the setting with only one rise cycle and no punch-down (2 lbs. loaf setting).

5. Test the temperature of the interior of the loaf before removing from the pan - it should have reached 205 to 210 degrees F. If it hasn't yet reached that temperature, either add time to your machine as another bake cycle, or simply put the pan into a regular oven at 350 degrees F (static), testing the temperature again at five-minute intervals.